OVER THE PAST twelve months, several Irish public figures have been erroneously described as “British”.
Saoirse Ronan? British. Hozier? You betcha. Conor McGregor? One of the Queen’s loyal subjects, apparently.
And we had hoped in 2016 that this might trend might finally die. After all, we did spend the better part of 2015 educating the world on why Irish does not equal British.
Unfortunately, it looks as though The Weinstein Co. didn’t get the memo.
On Sunday night, the film distributor sent out a tweet during the Super Bowl to promote Sing Street, the new musical from Once director John Carney.
The tweet was scheduled to coincide with Coldplay’s halftime show performance and read, “Want more British rockers? Check out the #SingStreet trailer from John Carney.”
Which would be fine… except for the fact that Sing Street is set in 1980s Dublin and features a predominantly Irish cast.
In fact, it’s so Irish that it literally stars Don Wycherley as a stern priest.
So, as you might expect, the tweet rubbed a lot of Irish people up the wrong way.
Sing Street, which follows a group of Dublin schoolboys as they form a band, was one of the critical hits at this year’s Sundance Film Festival and is set to open the Audi Dublin International Film Festival next week.
DailyEdge.ie has contacted The Weinstein Co. for comment.
In the meantime, we would very much appreciate if everyone could repeat the following mantra to themselves before writing about Sing Street: “Irish, not British. Irish, not British. Irish, not British…”
Written by Amy O’Connor and posted on DailyEdge.ie
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